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I was pleased to see the article in the recent OT Practice entitled "School Buses + Safety Belts = Good Idea." (Loveland, 2009). I think it is important for OTs to have a good discussion about ways to promote safety and prevention of child injuries.

There are some additional facts to consider so I wanted to list them here:

1. In the studies cited in the Loveland article, there was an annual average of 17,000 children seen for emergency treatment for school-bus related injuries. However, that number is a little misleading. The study reports that only 42% of those injuries were crash related, so by extrapolation, it is arguable that seat belts would not have made a difference in many of those injuries. In fact, the 17,000 number includes slips and falls outside of the bus, getting on/off the bus, etc (McGeehan, 2006).

I will be the first one to admit that it gets a little boring to listen to people have complaints about political correctness and terminology - everyone is offended by everything these days... but this article went so far beyond any semblance of acceptability that it has to be pointed out.

I am not criticizing the program - because I have no direct knowledge of what actually happens there. In concept I think that offering night time respite care for caregivers is a great idea. Unfortunately, the authors of this article portrayed the program in a very negative way - and I don't think that they really intended to do so.

Throughout the article the authors repetitively compare elderly program participants to children. For example:

1. The participants were "chattering and giggling like children sneaking out of camp."

2. A caregiver reports relief by stating, "It was like when your baby …

Or perhaps more appropriately titled: Too much information.Oh well.I wrote a blog entry once about 'the things I do.'It has been lost to time - I am not sure where I have the entry stored but I recall that it received many comments and sparked a lot of conversations about the issues of time and time spent - and how one comes to the decisions about the things they do. That entry is decidedly more serious than this one. So, I am not trying to recreate the original - but couldn't think of a more appropriate title for this entry.Maybe I will look for the original sometime.Today is a hard work day.I am not questioning why I am an occupational therapist but sometimes when I have hard work days I reflect back on what I thought I wanted to do when I grew up.I took a Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory in high school, and it said that my career interests were matched to a speech therapist, a college professor, and an actor.The fourth match was 'occupational therapist' but I …

Captain of the U.S.S. ABC Therapeutics - private practice near Buffalo, NY. Part time educator and full time stirrer of pots, happily responding to people's needs from deep within the "darkness of free enterprise."